On August 2, 2019, okPORK will honor Jim Seward, of Tyson Foods, with their Excellence Award during the 60th annual Oklahoma Pork Congress.

Seward is an alumni of NEO A&M College in Miami, Okla., and Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. He began working for Tyson Foods on May 23, 1977, and retired on June 1, 2019, after more than 42 years of service and loyalty to Tyson Foods and The Pork Group.   

On August 2, 2019, okPORK will honor Curtis Creed, of Smithfield Foods, with their Excellence Award during the 60th annual Oklahoma Pork Congress.

Creed began his career in the hog industry in 1997 as a contract truck driver. He hauled feeder pigs from Lonestar Nursery, a contract farm of Murphy Family Farms, now known as Smithfield Foods. He would load feeder pigs on a Monday morning and haul them to a finisher in South Dakota, come home, wash the truck then load the next barn on Thursday and make the haul again. 

For the past 13 years, the Oklahoma Pork Council and the Oklahoma Blood Institute have teamed up for the annual Memorial Day Blood Drive held during the last week of May. This year’s event included the theme “Give Local” where 1,697 donors were accounted for at the OBI buildings and busses around the state. A total of 3,741 lives were saved.

Feral Hog Management, Soil Health and USDA Program Updates will be the topics at a FREE workshop and dinner on June 20 in Spiro and Smithville. The event is presented by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other conservation partners.

Roy Lee Lindsey, executive director at okPORK traveled to Washington, D.C., for two days as part of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) Legislative Action Conference.

okPORK once again teamed up with the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and the Beer Distributors of Oklahoma to create and host a food and beverage friendly event known as the Legislative Round-Up.

Not only does a blue and gold corduroy jacket represent leadership and hard work, it acknowledges a commitment to care for the land and animals that feed us. The okPORK team spent May 1 and 2 among these great Oklahoma FFA students proudly parading their “Blue and Gold”.

okPORK is pleased to welcome Makala Navarro to our team for the summer of 2019. Makala is a senior majoring in Agriculture Communications and will graduate in December of 2019. We sat down with Makala for a Q&A so you could get to know her. You’ll be seeing her at okPORK events throughout the summer so be sure to say hi!

In October of 2019, okPORK and the department of Animal and Food Science at Oklahoma State University will team up to offer the first Pork Industry Group special problems course. This eight-week course will feature all the different careers related to pork production in Oklahoma.  It will also feature a tour of a sow farm and a tour of the Seaboard Pork Processing Plant in Guymon, Okla.

The Oklahoma Youth Expo is by far the world’s largest junior livestock show. And okPORK is privileged to be a part of it year after year.

There were over 5,000 swine projects exhibited this year. Looking at hundreds of great hogs is always a good day but seeing the smiles of the kids driving those projects made it a spectacular week! Those kids are why okPORK invests more than $18,000 in OYE. Those dollars are split between scholarships, prize sponsorships, feeding the swine committee and judges daily and premium sale purchases.